TRENTON — A federal appeals panel this morning said they will issue a ruling on whether former Olympic track and field star Carl Lewis can run for state Senate “with dispatch.”

At an early morning hearing in Philadelphia that lasted just under an hour, Lewis attorney Bill Tambussi made a last ditch appeal to the three judge panel to overturn Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno’s April decision to kick Lewis off the ballot.

Lewis is arguing that not allowing him to run violates his constitutional rights.

“The thing that can’t be lost in the issue here is the paramount right of the voters of the 8th District to have a meaningful choice,” said Tambussi as Lewis looked on. “At this point in time, we’re at the end of the race, so to speak.”

Lewis, 50, grew up in Willingboro but spent most of his adult life in Texas and California. He argues he returned to New Jersey in 2005, when he bought his first condo here in Mount Laurel, along with one for his mother. Two years later, in November, 2007, he bought a home in Medford.

Republicans challenged Lewis’s residency shortly after he announced his candidacy to challenge state Sen. Dawn Marie Addiego (R-Burlington) in the Republican-leaning 8th Legislative District. Although their challenge was first dismissed by an administrative law judge, Guadagno, in her dual role of secretary of state, overturned that decision and ruled that Lewis did not meet the state’s four-year residency requirement for state Senate candidates, partly because he voted in California as late as 2009. Since then, the case has been winding its way through federal courts. Last week, a federal district court judge refused to put Lewis back on the ballot.

Today, Tambussi admitted Lewis’ 2009 vote in California was the most troublesome part of the case.

“Judge, if Carl Lewis didn’t vote in California, we wouldn’t be here,” he said. Tambussi, however, insisted that Lewis’ vote there does not automatically mean he was not a New Jersey resident.

Assistant State Attorney General Donna Kelly argued the state constitutional provision requiring candidates to live in their districts for four years is time-tested and voter-approved.

“We have in the state of New Jersey a constitutional and a lawful 167 year old provision, and our line of demarcation is four years,” she said. “The fact of the matter is that four years is four years, and you need to keep a consistent enforcement.”

The judges did not signal how they will rule, but Judge Thomas Ambro questioned the state’s case particularly pointedly. Ambro noted the point of the residency requirement is that candidates are familiar with the district, and voters are familiar with the candidate.

“It’s hard to say that this candidate doesn’t know the local issues affecting the 8th Legislative District, and it’s kind of hard to say the voters don’t know who he is because of the fact that he’s gotten a lot of publicity over the years,” he said.

Ambro also said Guadagno may have misinterpreted the residency requirement by counting four years before the election, when it could be read as four years before being sworn in. Since Lewis bought his Medford home in November, 2007, Ambro said it could be a “lay down card” that he would meet the residency requirement by January, when he would be sworn in if he wins the election.

Mark Sheridan, an attorney for the Republicans who brought the challenge, said that didn’t matter because in 2009 Lewis voted in the Golden State — not the Garden State.

“You can have but one domicile. And that domicile, as evidenced by his voting in California, was in California in 2009. As a result, he cannot meet the four-year residency requirement,” he said.

Also representing Lewis today was former state Supreme Court Justice John Wallace, Jr., who did not speak during the hearing.